


Fighting to Survive

by AllTimePhan73



Series: Voltron Short Stories [20]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anger, Anger Management, Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Bullying, Galaxy Garrison, High School, Knives, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Panic Attacks, This is set before Shiro leaves for Kerberos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 22:27:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20217295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllTimePhan73/pseuds/AllTimePhan73
Summary: James was close. Much closer than Keith had realised. His warm breaths- shaky out of sheer terror- were licking the skin of Keith’s neck. If Keith just flickered his gaze downwards about half a millimetre, he’d see the tiny flickers of green amidst James’s wide, brown eyes. The world around the pair was so cloudy and muffled that neither heard the teacher yelling at Keith as he pressed the knife to James’s neck.





	Fighting to Survive

After a while, it becomes difficult to ignore pieces of scrunched up paper being thrown at the back of your head. After one hit, Keith rolled his eyes and put his head down to ignore the idiots that had nothing better to do than pick on a loner. After two hits, Keith was gnawing on his lip and holding his pen much too tightly. And, after about five hits, Keith had had enough. Despite being in the middle of a physics lesson, he whipped his head around to glare at James- the idiot who was midway through tearing a page out of his notebook.

James had a look in his eye that dared Keith to react. By that point, it was common knowledge that Keith had some major anger issues he was seeing a specialist and a mentor about (it was hard to hide it when everyone saw you leave the school counsellor’s office each Monday afternoon after fourth period).

Knives were banned from the school premises, besides the blunt stainless-steel kind used at mealtimes. This much was explained on everyone’s first day of the Garrison and was written on various posters around the school. This, however, didn’t stop Keith from carrying his blade. It was something that only ever left his person when he was showering as it had been a gift from the mother that had left when he was a baby. Keith didn’t like to admit it but he had an emotional connection to it.

_ Red_. Red filled Keith’s vision faster than he could have said the word itself. He leapt out of his seat, hands firmly grasping the knife in his pocket. His mouth fell open and words were escaping before Keith could even realise what was happening. “Leave me alone or you’ll regret it. I’m not afraid to use my knife on some idiot who thinks it’s funny to pick on people. If you want to leave this room alive, you better leave me the fuck alone.”

James was close. Much closer than Keith had realised. His warm breaths- shaky out of sheer terror- were licking the skin of Keith’s neck. If Keith just flickered his gaze downwards about half a millimetre, he’d see the tiny flickers of green amidst James’s wide, brown eyes. The world around the pair was so cloudy and muffled that neither heard the teacher yelling at Keith as he pressed the knife to James’s neck.

Filled to the brim with a kind of terror only brought to the surface by serious trauma, James was choking out a series of gasps. On a normal day, he wouldn’t have been caught dead doing anything that even resembled begging. Each person in the class- right down to the small boy who hadn’t said a word since joining the year later than the other students- stared at the pair with identical sets of round eyes and open mouths. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. It was just a joke. Please don’t hurt me. Please. I’m so sorry.”

Anyone close enough could see that Keith’s arm was trembling and his face was whiter than snow. It was obvious enough that he didn’t _ want _to hurt James but holding him at knifepoint was some sort of survival mechanism. It was Keith’s special way of dealing with a threatening situation; his body was screaming at him, telling him to '_fight to survive!_' Before any actual blood could be drawn, hands were grabbing at Keith’s upper arms and pulling him away from James. He was panting and beads of sweat were forming on his forehead but he hadn’t realised. His body was stuck in the _ fight _ part of its fight or flight response. Without thinking, he pointed his knife at whoever was touching him.

“Get away from me.” The words didn’t feel like they belonged to him but they had come out of _ his _ mouth. Keith scrunched his eyes shut as his heart pounded inside his chest. Everything seemed much too loud: from the judgemental whispers to the sound of pages turning. Keith was hyperventilating and felt like he was going to suffocate. He hunched over and let out a noise that could only have been described as a broken whimper. Despite how threatening he had seemed just moments previously, he looked more like a defenceless animal.

Finally, his fight or flight response subsided and Keith shot out of the classroom, still clutching his knife for dear life.

Keith wasn’t even sure where he was heading until he shoved the door to the boys’ toilets open. He buried his head into his hands as he paced up and down the small length of the bathroom. He was still breathing erratically but, in conjunction with that, tears were beginning to burn his eyes. He only noticed he had company when the person spoke up. “Uh… are you okay?” Keith moved his hands from his face to look directly into a set of blue eyes.

“I’m fine.”

“You sure? You look like you’re having a mental breakdown or something.”

“It’s not like I just pulled a knife on someone in my class.” The other guy laughed. “I’m not joking.” His wide grin dropped into a straight line filled with concern and a slight hint of fear. It was clear that he wasn't quite sure how he was expected to react to such a statement falling from Keith's mouth.

“Do you want me to get a teacher or something?” Keith shook his head as tears continued to trail down his cheeks. “Okay… do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Do… Do you want me to distract you?” After Keith shrugged, the guy continued to speak. “What’s your favourite colour then?”

“Uh… red maybe? I don’t know.”

“Animal?”

“Hippos. They’re quite cute.”

“That’s a bit random though, isn’t it?”

“Yeah but they’ve always been my favourite…”

The pair stayed in the bathroom as the stranger asked random questions every so often and about twenty minutes must have passed. As the guy asked another question about Keith’s favourite song, the door flew open to reveal one of the higher-ups. Shiro. He was one of the last people Keith wanted to see at the moment so he was fully prepared to run. He eyed up the doorway to plan the best route but Shiro’s tall form was blocking it.

“Keith, how are you feeling?” Shiro asked, voice laced with the exact kind of sympathy Keith hated.

“I’m not a child! I don’t need a stupid mentor!” Keith tried his best to barge passed Shiro but the guy who had just spent twenty minutes calming him down grabbed his arm and sent him a look as if to say ‘_ you need to talk to Shiro _.’

“You pulled a knife on someone. We can’t just forget that happened.”

“I didn’t hurt him. I- I wasn’t even going to. I just wanted him to leave me alone.”

“What if you did hurt him?”

“I don’t know,” Keith hunched his body over as he released a heavy sob. His voice was coming out cracked and broken, not at all resembling the underlying threat it had once had. “I can’t help it… He was getting on my nerves.”

“That’s no reason to get a knife out. You know your knife has to be confiscated now, right? You aren’t allowed to carry anything with a blade around the premises anyway.”

“No! You can’t do that!” The other guy whose name Keith still didn’t know wrapped his arms around Keith. Shiro glanced at them as if he had only just realised he and Keith weren’t alone.

“Can you give us some space?” The guy glanced at Shiro and chewed on his bottom lip for a moment. Eventually, he nodded and fled the bathroom so Keith and Shiro were alone. “I didn’t know you knew Lance?” Shiro questioned, raising both his eyebrows. When Keith shot him a quizzical look, Shiro just shook his head and released a gentle sigh. “I’ll take you to the school counsellor and we can all have a long chat.”

“Are they going to kick me out?”

“I don’t know, Keith. I really don’t.”

As much as Keith wanted to argue that _ he didn’t need help _ or _ he didn’t want his knife to get taken off him_, he didn’t. He sighed and reluctantly tagged behind Shiro towards a room that was much too familiar to him. A sickly, nauseous feeling was settling in the pit of his stomach; something was telling him that he had done it that time. He had gone off the rails so much that the Garrison had finally had enough.


End file.
